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Escalating unrest 1972 - 1994

Operation Motorman was designed to break Free Derry and other republican no go areas in the north of Ireland, and to remove support bases for republicans, but it failed. The war continued for more than two more decades, until the announcement of the first PIRA ceasefire in 1994.

By the time of the 1994 ceasefire 122 people had lost their lives here, including 73 civilians and republican volunteers and 49 members of the security forces. These figures include 33 civilians killed by British state forces. Two of those who died on hunger strike in 1981 – Patsy O’Hara and Mickey Devine – were from Free Derry.

Most of the civilians killed by state forces were labelled as gunmen and bombers at the time, but in recent years family campaigns have begun to force an admission of the truth. William McGreanery’s family eventually received an apology from the British Ministry of Defence and an admission that he was not armed when he was shot dead. A fresh inquest overturned the original findings in Daniel Hegarty’s case, and the coroner ordered a new police investigation, but the Public Prosecution Service then decided not to prosecute the soldier who killed him. New inquests were ordered in the cases of Kathleen Thompson, Manus Deery and Seamus Bradley, but they were postponed again and became caught up in the tangled web of unresolved issues from this era.

To date no British soldier or RUC officer has ever been charged with killing anyone in the Free Derry area, while in contrast there have been charges in around 25 per cent of the cases where the victims were members of the security forces.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a series of talks – the Hume-Adams talks – were held in the Bogside, and these were pivotal in the process that led to the 1994 ceasefires and the eventual end of the conflict. Figures who had been key in the Free Derry era, such as John Hume and Martin McGuinness, were central to these talks.

And Free Derry Corner remained throughout all these years, the political and emotional epicentre of the area, a symbol of the years of struggle for civil rights and the years of armed conflict that followed. And it remains today as a symbol of the same, and as a marker for civil and human rights struggles around the world. It is still the symbol and the spirit of Free Derry.

About the Museum of Free Derry

The Museum of Free Derry tells the story of how a largely working class community rose up against the years of oppression it had endured. The museum and archive has become an integral part of Ireland’s radical and civil rights heritage.

The museum also tells the story of Bloody Sunday, the day when the British Army committed mass murder on the streets of the Bogside. It tells the story of how the people of Derry, led by the families of the victims, overcame the injustice and wrote a new chapter in the history of civil rights, which has become a source of international inspiration.

The museum is a public space where the concept of Free Derry can be explored in both historic and contemporary contexts. Free Derry is about our future together as much as it is about the past. The struggle of Free Derry is part of a wider struggle in Ireland and internationally for freedom and equality for all.